3013 Neurons: The Most Complete Map of the Brain

In the language of neuroscience ever since twenty yearsand this is called a “neural network”: either Study all links that make the brain the way it is. Because neurons build not only our behaviors and decisions, but the connections between neurons. Each neuron is like a long wire, with different shapes, with branches at both ends called synapses, and each synapse is connected to other neurons. It is through these branches that “signals” or “messages” – neurotransmitters – are transmitted from one nerve cell to another.

However, what the team of biologist Maria Zlatek, of the University of Cambridge, announced in A Previously published research On the BioXriv server, it’s a full 3D map of the connections of 3,013 neurons and 544,000 synapses of a fruit fly larva (Drosophila melanogaster). This is the largest neural network known to date: in 2020Briton Gaspard Jekili and colleagues “mapped” 1,500 neurons to a seaworm larva (Platineris Domirele).

This is a fly larva It is presented this month As an important step towards more complex animal networks, the mouse to humans.

But the step is high. This step is sure to allow experts to better understand how the signals sent by neurons are transmitted from one end of the brain to the other, and how brain regions interact with each other, Every creation is such and such behavior.

But before he hopes to reach a human – that is Assuming we can even get therethe human mind Anything but stillness– It would be necessary to pass by a more “modest” target, such as a mouse. It may be important 70 million neurons. Continuous advances in information technology allowing Process larger amounts of data fasterleading experts to believe that a mouse’s neural network will be within their reach within 10 years.